Naspers, a South African media and tech conglomerate acquired 51% stake in Travel Boutique Online (TBO) in 2012, which is a B2B travel distribution firm, and Standard Chartered Private Equity (SCPE) has agreed to acquire Naspers’ full stake in TBO. This deal will mark the firm’s second exit from India this year.
Standard Chartered Private Equity is the private equity (PE) subsidiary of Standard Chartered Bank which did not reveal the terms of the deal with the South African company. However, Naspers who had invested about Rs 110 crore in the company, earned $42-45 million (Rs 285-306 crore) from the sale of its stake.
“Naspers first invested in TBO Group six years ago and it’s rewarding to see how the business has grown and advanced in that time,” said Oliver Rippel, CEO B2C e-commerce at Naspers. “We wish Ankush, Gaurav and the team at TBO Group continued success.”
On the other hand, TBO is an international travel technology platform which offers a variety of travel services to travel agents and tour operators across the globe. The company leverages its online technology platform to provide airline and hotel inventory to its customer travel agents.
Ankush Nijhawan, Co-founder of TBO Group, stated, “We are very happy to have SCPE as our partner as we embark on the next stage of TBO’s growth. Through leveraging SCPE ‘s extensive network and business planning expertise, we would be able to strengthen our position as a leading B2B travel distribution player in the global landscape.”
On the other hand, as part of the deal, TBO co-founders Ankush Nijhawan and Gaurav Bhatnagar will now hold a majority position in the venture. But, it is still not clear whether there has been a primary infusion of cash into the company as part of the deal.
TBO provides its services to more than 45,000 travel partners across more than 90 countries, along with a revenue of about $1 billion. According to the reports, the company’s consolidated net sales recorded Rs 276 crore in 2016-17, increased from Rs 205 crore in the previous fiscal. Whereas, the net profit was Rs 28.9 crore for 2016-17, up from Rs 16 crore in the previous fiscal.
“We are extremely excited to partner with Ankush and Gaurav…who have built a profitable and scalable business with a strong market position. We look forward to supporting the company by leveraging our experience and network to drive the company’s growth strategy,” said Udai Dhawan, managing director of SCPE India.
It is being expected that with this deal, TBO can leverage their strengths in technology and scale up to drive this consolidation. Also, for SCPE it might prove to be a profitable deal in the future for sure.